IP Media Monitor: VOD - whitepapers

Alcatel Powers Orange 3G Video Services

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

PacketVideo Network Solutions, an Alcatel company, has been working with Orange on video and audio MobileMedia for around five years. Towards the end of 2003, Orange awarded PacketVideo Network Solutions a global contract to deliver video streaming software for mobile video and audio services across the Orange footprint. Following this contract, the two companies continued working with content providers, handset manufacturers and application developers to deliver the best MobileMedia experience to users. A key factor was that the contract ensured a seamless transition for Orange video users migrating from GPRS to 3G. Orange successfully launched its 3G services in the UK in 2004, first with the 3G data card then, with Alcatel's assistance, its 3G video services. The Orange and Alcatel engineering teams are continuing to work together to improve the 3G video user's experience.

IP Telephony and Reliability: Protecting Mission-critical Phone Systems from Power Threats

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

IT managers who are used to implementing power protection for IT network or data center applications face new challenges in protecting their enterprise IP telephony systems. Users demand the same high level of reliability for IP telephony and its converged voice/data/ video applications as they demand from the conventional phone systems that IP telephony replaces.

IP telephony equipment in remote wiring closets is typically less secure, less protected, and far more apt to be at risk from higher repair times. Accordingly, IT managers must consider the complete protection system required to provide a high-availability system. The six requirements for achieving high-availability in wiring closets and other remote locations are:

Power quality
System redundancy
Precision cooling
Remote monitoring and management
Physical security of system equipment
Mission-critical service

Understanding 802.11 Constraints for Audio and Video Applications

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Wireless LAN technologies such as 802.11 (WiFi), Bluetooth and Ultra Wide Band (UWB) got their beginnings in providing a wire replacement for internet access and digital data communications. The transfer rate robustness, high performance using embedded microprocessors and dropping price-points are making these viable for audio and video applications such as audio streaming, video conferencing, and gaming. To accommodate the data rate characteristics as a function of distance on top of a Wireless network, the issues associated with wireless contention from other same Access Point users, and the added functionality of audio or video processing must be evaluated.

Windows Media Video

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Windows Media Video (WMV) is a generic name for the set of streaming video technologies developed and controlled by Microsoft. It provides high quality video encoding techniques for a wide range of applications like mobile devices, HDTV, set-top box, PC etc. Along with other Windows Media technologies, it provides for authoring, distribution, playback and digital rights management of the digital media contents. This paper gives a high level overview of the Windows Media Video Codecs and the applications and provides a brief picture of the various features.

MPEG-4 Systems: Elementary Stream Management

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

We describe the Elementary Stream Management (ESM) facilities provided by MPEG-4 Systems. Within the extensive set of tools defined by MPEG-4, the ESM tools play a critical role in joining several building blocks together. ESM provides a dual to the scene description language (BIFS) in that it links the streaming resources of a presentation to the scene. We also describe the synchronization functionality as well as the system decoder model that defines the timing behavior and buffer resource management of MPEG-4 receivers. The paper concludes with considerations on data packaging in underlying delivery layer protocols and a description of the MPEG-4 content access procedure.

Benefits of Hardware MPEG-2 & DVD Playback on Personal Computers

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

This white paper compares the value and performance offered by hardware and software-based DVD playback products. Software DVD-Video playback was evaluated using the software DVD player which was included with the ATI Rage Pro Turbo VGA graphics card. Hardware DVD-Video playback (the coprocessor) was tested using the Sigma Designs Hollywood Plus PCI board.

Call Control for a Broadband Multiprotocol Age

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Not so long ago, a phone call was, well, a phone call: people talked to each other. They still do, of course, racking up record POTS traffic, but this goes along with a growing amount of faxes, e-mails, data files, audio-messages, graphics and streaming video. And these newer forms of communications are being delivered over an equally wide selection of protocols -- frame relay, ATM, IP, CDPD, GSM, as well as traditional TDM. This growing diversity of media and protocol types--which is (somewhat paradoxically) known as convergence is the governing principle of the broadband, multimedia era.

Delivering Cost-Effective Advanced Video Services: Intel and Kasenna Combine to Enable Scalable ...

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Delivering advanced video services promises to be an ideal strategy for service providers who wish to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) and remain competitive. Video on Demand (VOD) and Personal Video Recorder (PVR) services have a strong appeal for customers when delivered as part of a

SURPASS Home Entertainment

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

In the highly competitive telecommunication's market, value-adding services play a decisive role in business success: applications are increasing the customer loyalty and open up new sources of revenues. The benefits of broadband, combined with TV's easy of use, allow operators to tap into a market that has so far been limited to PC users. This is why broadband services are gaining acceptance in the living room. Operators are highly interested to enter this business to generate new revenue streams leveraging their existing infrastructure. New offerings will it make easy for users to enjoy both entertainment and communication services on TV. These simple-to-use services are available to any consumer who possesses television and DSL line, turning the television into a true entertainment and communication centre. Online games and video/audio on demand are offered, as well as easy-to use functions for recording TV programs (PVR) directly from an electronic program guide (EPG) such as viewing of "missed" programs, time-delay/time-shifted television. In addition video telephony, support of SMS, MMS and e-mail messages as well as Internet access via the TV set is made available. This paper aims to describe the environment operators have to face nowadays and how they can secure and extend their business in a changing market with the SURPASS Home Entertainment solution.

Converged Video Service Provisioning: How service providers can provision basic IP video ...

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

This white paper looks at video service provisioning both as a stand-alone process and as part of a triple play offering. It also discusses the steps needed to provision the individual services (i.e., video, data, and voice). For simplicity, only the processes associated with the offering of basic IP video Service - broadcast TV, and video on demand (VOD) - are dealt with. Broadcast TV refers to the viewing of live television channels. VOD allows subscribers to request a video program and manage the viewing experience through VCR-like commands (e.g. forward, reverse). Other features are offered, such as near video on demand (nVOD), time shifted TV, and access to external applications, but provisioning depends on the architecture and the platforms selected by the service provider.

MUVIS: Multi-Source Video Streaming Service Over WLANs

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Video streaming over wireless networks is challenging due to node mobility and high channel error rate. This paper proposes a Multi-source Video Streaming (MUVIS) system to support high quality video streaming service over IEEE 802.11-based wireless networks. The paper begins by collocating a streaming proxy with the wireless access point to help leverage both the media server and peers in the WLAN. By tracking the peer mobility patterns and performing content discovery among peers, a multi-source sender group and stream video using a rate-distortion optimized scheme is constructed. A multi-source streaming scenario is formulated as a combinatorial packet scheduling problem and the concept of asynchronous clocks is introduced to decouple the problem into three steps.

Weather Forecasting - Predicting Performance for Streaming Video Over Wireless LANs

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

The growth of wireless LANs has brought the expectation for high-bitrate streaming video to wireless PCs. However, it remains unclear how wireless channel characteristics impact the quality of streaming video sent over wireless LANs. This paper presents results from experiments that stream commercial video over a wireless campus network. By analyzing the streaming video quality and capturing wireless LAN characteristics across network and wireless link layers, "weather forecasts" are created such that selected wireless LAN performance indicators might be used to predict the streaming video quality.

MUVIS: Multi-Source Video Streaming Service Over WLANs

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

MPEG-4 Systems: Overview

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

This paper gives an overview of Part 1 of ISO/IEC 14496 (MPEG-4 Systems). It first presents the objectives of the MPEG-4 activity. In the MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards, "Systems" referred only to overall architecture, multiplexing, and synchronization. In MPEG-4, in addition to these issues, the Systems part encompasses scene description, interactivity, content description, and programmability. The description of the MPEG-4 specification follows, starting from the general architecture up to the description of the individual MPEG-4 Systems tools. Finally, a conclusion describes the future extensions of the specification, as well as a comparison between the solutions provided by MPEG-4 Systems and some alternative technologies.

Digital Video for the Next Millenium

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

The simplest definition of digital video is the representation or encoding of an analog video signal in digital bits for storage, transmission and display. If you have access to the World Wide Web, chances are you have viewed digital video files. Digital video files pervade the analog television and 70 mm film world. Digital video is a growing presence in the academic arena, from digitized course lectures to archival footage housed in the campus library. Video conferencing -- for collaboration, Internet-based communication and teaching -- is an important digital video service.

Windows Media Video

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Digital Media Delivery: Content on Demand - Silicon Storage Appliance Implementation for Rich ...

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Pictures, music, video, words; content makes the world go around. From television to desktop to PDA, making content a more compelling and interactive experience for the user is what will make those users hungry for more. High-quality real-time video, video-on-demand and videoconferencing technologies are all critical for applications such as pay-per-view entertainment, e-commerce, corporate communications, distance learning, and remote scientific collaboration.

Webcast: New Innovations in Switching Technology

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Switching technology plays an increasingly important role in ensuring the security and reliability of enterprise networks. With your employees, customers, and partners connecting through a multitude of wired and wireless devices, you need switches that support your voice, video, wireless, and productivity applications.

Multimedia Data Delivery by Satellite and IP Multicasting

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

A dramatic change brought about with the advent of digital television is the conversion from an analog to a digital representation of the television spectrum. In the new digital world, data is easily and efficiently passed through from its source to destination in an unaltered fashion. As a result, datacasting is rapidly achieving parity with video and audio services in digital television systems.

Best Practices for Producing On Demand Video for the Web

Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00

Publishing video is becoming an increasingly important part of many companies' Web communication, marketing, and customer support strategies. The growth in broadband connections to the home, along with the emergence of user-friendly video formats, has made video content easily available to consumers, who have demonstrated a voracious appetite for relevant video content.